sibyl suspended inanimate

One of my favourite lines from something I wrote. I don't know what to write, this is really just for triskaidekaphobic ritual.

What a glorious face I have found in this place.

Sip tea on your patio, you sit in the sun, if I do that I'm done and I stay in the shade. I'll help you and you'll feed me, I say the wrong thing and you forgive, I work and you watch. What must you think of me? I'm tall and pale and a wimp sometimes. I don't want you to think I'm girly or ineffectual or chubby. Maybe you do.

Mollusc Monoverse.

Anemochore- the dispersal of seeds by wind.
ascidium- shaped like a flask, used for plants in biology
locular- containing chambers or hollows.
funiculate-forming a narrow ridge
Glissade
perdure-to last permanently

They track solemn over darkling tarmac flatlands.
Locular houses aback, an anemochral procession over
Sticks and stones. No bones to break. Funiculate
their path with a slow glissade. Perdurance is not theirs.
The crows will have them from a height tomorrow.
Or else schoolboys with salt or dead rubber shoes.
Tonight they cavort, feelers out from the grass
The morning brings smears, splayed shell asphalt cast.

Meandering through the thoughts.

I walked from the House to my house today. I watched the snails cavort, solemn on the concrete flatlands. It took me about an hour, and it was about three and a half miles. It was good.

I have eaten:

cereal plus raisins-250
a flake-50
some dinner at the House- 200
muesli in tea and raisins- 250
two slices toast-250
one slice of bread-100
cake-100
1/4 a baked potato-100
cucumber-20
smoothie-100

I feel like there's something else... but as is, that's... 1420. Seems a lot. But that's OK, I have done a bit of exercise today.

I'm thinking things I shouldn't be about someone twice my age, and she'll never reciprocate. I like her less than I did, but still some. She offers me food but I can't eat normally in front of her. That's always a telltale sign. I ate what was put in front of me today, but I took a mouthful and some fell out. I don't think anyone saw but I was embarrassed nontheless. I refused yoghurt. It came in strange packs, I didn't want to risk it, but maybe shouldn't have said so, not so much anyway. I say things wrong. I am wrong. I'm contrary and silly and stupid, wrong wrong wrong.

She doesn't say this but I think people think it, and she would too.

Today she wore a purple sweatshirt and purple velour trousers. She showed me a pumpkin which I thought was a swede. She likes to play at thoughts and make them other things, and I like to do this too. Pumpkins to carriages, the neighbourhood to Paradise, and I suppose it all is to her, in her world. She makes me laugh and I like hearing her laugh, properly. I didn't too much today, but I will. Her head's the perfect height to rest on my shoulder. I want to help round the house and do things for her, though she doesn't need much doing. Everyone there eats so fast, I wouldn't have thought it, but they do. Fast eaters, thin people. I'm not a fast eater and nor am I thin. I wonder.

Maybe...

Because I take more chances I'm more liable to rejection.

But also more liable to get through to something brilliant.

I think I can stand that payoff.

I'm not perfect like I should be. I can't stand that.

I've been stupid.

Oh, stupid. It's such an appropriate word.

I don't know what to do now because you're not responding though you wouldn't have time to respond now anyway. Ugh.

Why do I care so much? You don't care about me this much, it's just not the way it works. Why? If you did something like this I don't know what I'd do. I've got a friend that always does the perfect thing on every occasion, it's not like she tries, she's just good at people. I wish I could be more like her. She'd know what to do, and she'd be perfect at this. She'd have handled it right from when the man asked me for my email address.

I'm not her. I overate tonight and she wouldn't feel like this, not about overeating. I have the wrong reactions and I say the wrong things, I'm wired up wrong.

I don't know what to do.

1400 today, and no exercise to negate it.

Here's a little oddity of my own mental state.

I went to a dance class for adults for the first time last night. Three classes, in fact, two of which were really good. Contemporary and Jazz dance. There's nothing especially incredible about that, but what is bizarre is my own attitude to my fellow participants.

There were three teenagers, two of whom were less than svelte, who kept giggling at the back, to hide their ineptitude. I felt annoyed about them laughing, but then I realised it was out of sheer awkwardness. Or maybe because I looked autistic; I wore a leotard under tracksuit bottoms, and kept practising at the side when everyone else was talking. I've danced before, so I had some idea of technique, even though I've always been terrible at memorising steps and routines. Most people in the class haven't danced before. That was OK, though I wished they'd be more graceful, though I've lost a lot of agility so I was no Navratilova myself. There was an aerobics instructor, who seemed nice, but I thought she should have been more graceful and memorised the steps better, considering her job, and a woman that was either fat or pregnant. From the small, abstaining, protesting sips she took of her water, I could deduce that she wanted to be anorexic but simply wasn't. She was trying to be elegant- she wore a dress and leggings- but failed. I'm horrible for being so petty and criticising everyone, but this is what I thought. I suppose I simply am a cow.

I was judgemental to both of these groups of people, but the people I was most scathing of were the two largest girls in the classes. One wore the saddest pair of tracksuit bottoms I've ever seen. She had a large stomach and small legs, a lightbulb shape, so the thin grainy fabric accentuated her pant line and the faded gray-green of the things slipped down or rode up to show her considerable girth.She also wore a pair of blue glasses, I couldn't fathom why. They didn't add to the style statement. The other girl was of the large and jolly type- she laughed a lot during the breaks, and when I looked over I noticed that she wouldn't be doing the steps, or she'd run off halfway through a routine across the room. People that give up irk me. It occurred to me that she might be one of those that say, "I eat nothing and do loads of exercise" but she doesn't put her whole self into it, and so doesn't lose any weight. Blue glasses practised routines at the side with me, both in our own world, but was fairly graceless and forgetful when we did them across the room. These thoughts shock me, because I think of myself as accepting of larger people, but then I caught myself wondering why they were there, judging them. How are they ever going to improve if they don't go to a class? And they have no less right than me to be there, so who am I to say anything?

If I think of how I looked to the class- terrible skin, no makeup, the only one in a leotard (albeit half covered in trackies) they must have thought that I was getting ideas way above my station, even that I was too chunky to be a dancer or similar thoughts to the ones I've had about those women, though I was probably one of the slimmest there. I came across as either standoffish, obsessive, shy or all three. I'm aware of that. I don't care how they judge me, but I care a lot about how I judge others. It's not my place to pronounce verdicts on two women I don't know. It's not about being mean, it's about being arrogant. I didn't think that I was this bitchy. None of my friends are as large as those women are, and none of them have the same temperament- Little Bird might be a bit larger but she's still a brilliant runner- but if I thought someone was judging Little Bird, or she of the Bovine, it would make me furious.

Hmm.

Today's peregrinations.

I hate feeling or seeing veins and tendons under my skin. It reminds me that they're there, and I'm vulnerable to sharp objects. I don't like to touch them and think of the blood flow stopping, so I never do. I flinch if people touch the tendons on my neck. I cannot eat meat from the bone. Or cannot abide it, and they're different. It puts me in mind of a corpse.

I don't mind bones in me though. I derive great pleasure from touching my ribs and hipbones. It makes me happy, though I hate the podge between them. Collarbones are a source of concern, pointing to the sternum, but I don't mind them too much. They can be dealt with. They make me look thinner than I am which is a plus.

He once said that I was all bony. Most people say angular. I think fat, and assembled wrong- as if a team of shotputters have thrown clumps of adipose tissue at a large skeletal infrastructure. Stuck on the hips and a fair few other places but not the right ones. What would you say, if you hugged me? I'm smaller than people tend to think, but heavier too. Smaller to hold, heavier to lift. Bonier. You might think I'm not as thin as the others. You might think I'm fine, or thinner. I don't think you would say anything or care. I wonder if you're even aware of eating disorders, of those silly trivial problems? And they really are, why worry about eating when most people in the world worry that they can't. I feel guilty thinking about it. I feel guilty eating because other people can't and I feel guilty not eating because they'd love this food. You don't know I'm hopelessly fixated, at any rate. You might think I'm a little strange, a little irksome, or a lot, but hopefully not when it comes to food, that most trivial of things. I wonder if you ever had eating things like me. I wonder wonder wonder constantly about you, though less today than usual.

Am I smug?

Am I smug about knowing that I don't know about anything? I eject myself from the argument by virtue of my own ignorance, but then I'm not partaking at all, not giving anything that I potentially could give.

Today I have ate 1360, or else 1560, written down elsewhere. I don't know about portion sizes. I also went on two walks and did a three hour dancing class, it made me sweaty and aware of my own lack of grace and the waning of my agility. It wasn't as fun as it was when I was at the other dance school, the teachers weren't as good.

One of the volunteers at the House asked the other day if I wasn't worried about being raped if I volunteer at the shelter overnight. I'm not, really. I know it could happen; but I believe Lady of the House would protect me, and I think it would be a shame not to do something I wanted to because I was scared. The world's a big place. Then she asked what I would talk to them about; I had never thought of that. The people in the shelter are easy to talk to; I don't feel I have to impress them, I can just be myself, and they can just be themselves. Sometimes we don't have a language in common but then, silence is comfortable. It's all men, and men are different to women, and I like being there. I am worried about more romantic prepositions; I'm no beauty but I can see that I'd be a case of any port in a storm; if you're living in a shelter you just want closeness, sexual or otherwise.

Determinist dad.

When Dad gets on his high horse about some academic point we disagree on I always feel myself getting angry. It's not because I'm losing (though conceding the point would be painful) it's because I feel like he's not listening to me, and no doubt vice-versa happens too.

I feel like he's testing my mettle, if I don't want to argue it's a fault and a weakness in character. I feel like he's smug in his correctness, assuming there's no God. I don't know what I think about God but I think noone has the right to pronounce on something they know nothing of or about, and so people should just stop getting arsey about religion or the lack of it.

I feel like he wants a decent fight and he wants to win. But I don't want to fight, I don't want to agree, I don't want... I want simple, but nothing is ever simple like that.

Take Lady of the House, she probably wants me for an ulterior motive, probably to fill out her own personal congregation of those against a variety of things, which is really no better than Christian bible bashers in its approach.

Yet I'm still her willing acolyte.

I can't fathom myself.

Things I like though I shouldn't

1. People with extreme views. I like their passion.

2. 24 hour supermarkets, especially of the Tesco variety. I know they're promoting slave labour, swamping the market to give us less choice and ultimately doing away with friendly neighbourhood shops and they'll put prices up sky high when they're the only ones in the market... but I like the big white space, the overlighting, the big expanse of space that comes from going into one, the way I can stick my headphones on and browse endlessly whilst bopping along, the way I can get lost in food and watch what other people are buying. Some of my favourite times happen in Tescos; times with partners, times buying fat food with my brother, christmas food shopping and that one christmas where my Mum pointed out how thin I was to anyone in earshot. I liked those times. Positive associations I suppose. It's a great bonding experience to buy food with someone. I saw a documentary on anorexics where one liked to go to the supermarket and control food. I wonder if that's part of it; food obsession, fixation with its supply, oh.

3. Funerals. Noone has to pretend to be happy. Everyone looks better in black. They're classy. Often followed by getting a little bit tipsy and bonding in a way that doesn't happen at big family parties with blaring music. Family secrets always worm through in the wake, morbid fixations; it's as if sharing that person's death solidifies that family circle.

4. Weddings. I don't want one, and I don't think they are worthwhile or needed. Most couples, I think, would be happier without one. They're still skewed to patriarchy. The amount of money hurled at them is disgusting. But still... I like watching the dresses. I have a fervent desire to be a bridesmaid that's been held for eighteen years now. I like the food, the celebrations, the first dance of a couple that are so happy, that look melted into each other's arms, so much so that the entire room feeds off the current that's running through them, like an electrical circuit, and the chance to dress up.

5. Dolly Parton. She's had so much plastic surgery and she's just not natural; but you can't dislike her. I think she's a brilliantly talented musician, and very clever, not in the way that people say Jordan's clever, but actually bright and witty and observing. She seems like she'd be kind to anyone. She wrote a song for Transamerica, a brilliant film. She's still going strong.

6. Films like Hairspray and Mean Girls. They're films I watch ad nauseam. They're chick flick-y, but I don't think they're complete drivel because they have a point and they're about more than just getting the man. Though it irritates me that Hairspray centres around race issues but has a white character as its protagonist, despite that character being a fat girl, which is some bonus. I just like them. They're entertaining.

Envisioning

Of you and I in your kitchen, and we'd be talking about Christmas, and I'd leave you a present, perfectly selected, something of me and something of you.

I don't know if you do Christmas. I don't like to think of you alone at it even if you don't. You've got family so maybe you go to them, or they come to you or you go to someone particularly special.

I know the perfect thing to get you, or what I would like to be a perfect thing. You like facts that support you, a cosy web of facts to lie queen in. But I would like to buy you fiction, of persecuted peoples; maybe a myths book, a book of collected tales, or else a modern dystopia that I'm so keen on, The Handmaid's Tale, or the Penelopiad (because it might be your namesake) or 1984, or a book of poems that I like. Or even one of my own if I was brave enough, though I never would be and that would be too effusive. Maybe Shakespeare's Othello. Maybe William Blake. Second hand ideally, a copy with history of its own. I'd like to make you a piece of jewellery, a hunk of natural stone threaded onto a thick material to catch the light like you do. I read somewhere jewellery is meant to denote ownership, by the giver, to the gifted. I don't mean that, I just mean... I would like all of these presents but would you?

I'd wrap it just so and leave it with a tag on a worktop in the kitchen where you would find it. That's what would please me. I might not write that it was from me. I might just write, "To....., I thought you would like this because I do. Happy Christmas. Love." Happy Christmas, love from me, and happy christmas my love, both equally meant. No pressure on you to return the favour, to react in a certain way because I'd be gone by the time you found it, no pressure on me to watch you or to make it a gift you couldn't fail to adore, mismeant. You could be pleased or unhappy as the feeling caught you, and there's noone to blame or to thank afterwards. Just the present for you to enjoy, discard, donate, whatever.

I'd hope it would make you glad that someone had thought of you. It would be lovely if you thought it was me, and that made you happy. I'd be happy if you got it and thought it was someone you loved, if it wasn't me, because that would make your heart soar and you deserve that my darling.

Happy because nights are growing darker.

And it's cooler. I have less appetite round this time of year, which is good, and I'm happier because it's cooler, it's easier.



It's starting to smell like christmas in the air, though Christmas is far off. I don't like the present getting part of christmas. I don't like getting presents because it makes me feel greedy, and I don't like the presents themselves usually. I don't like consumerism before it, though I don't mind buying the presents themselves or writing thankyou letters, though I detest with a passion thankyou phonecalls. I don't want anything that other people can buy for me; I want success in life and to be able to act, and have fun. But you can't buy those.



My favourite parts of christmas are:



Making mince pies with my Dad on Christmas Eve.

The walk we always take after christmas dinner.

The big shop we do at a 24 hour supermarket on the night of the 22nd or 23rd. We go as a family and buy all sorts of good food, and it's always fun, and we come back knackered but with full cupboards.

Today's noshing.

I like the name Roisin, pronounced Rosheen, though I'd rather it was spelt Rosheen.



Today I ate:



2.5 slices of bread-300

an apple-40



340



2 biscuits-120

cappucino-100



220



mince and broccoli-400

ice cream-110.

raisins-50

I feel like I ate something between the apple and the cappucino... but I'm screwed if I can remember what. Biscuits.



1120. That's good, especially because today I did bike riding and walked round town and stuff like that. I've probably made a deficit.



I went to see the Lady of the House. I don't know if she's getting sick of the sight of me or not... she mentioned an event she'd be at that I should go to, but still, I don't know. Why don't I know? It's so aggravating not knowing how other people perceive you, it makes me think I must be irritating all the time until I get precise confirmation that this is not the case.

Tarmac trite.

Tarmac is a lovely word.

I want to say something about, the cracked tarmac road bumping and the worry of bike breaking and brakes and cars whooshing past and how when I'm riding along all the things I think of, how it feels to ride at night, how it makes me angry when the wind blows in my face, or if I'm angry or happy I pedal faster push push push. How I think of her, so when I'm there, it's not like I'm really there at all sometimes.

Goodnight, my love, goodnight
Away off into the dark sky
Blister on the horizon, darkling fly
Across the town under the lights
Wind in my face and cars at my side
Tuned into songs at eventide
Feet to flinting floor I'm bound
Crossing miles of blackened ground
Whistling between the western winds
Threats dispersed, intended to singe
The night's glazed with your face and arms
Enfolding me pistonlegged homewards.

Words asking me to be brilliant.

Anemochore- the dispersal of seeds by wind.
ascidium- shaped like a flask, used for plants in biology
locular- containing chambers or hollows.
funiculate-forming a narrow ridge
Glissade
perdure-to last permanently

Six are too many at once, so how about I take three. How about I just try to describe a feeling and don't worry about how they fit in or not.

I am looking the other way hoping that you are looking at me.
I know it's wrong to have that hope. It's immodest.
Funiculate my skin with your eyes
Mark me as yours.

It's not that simple though. Nothing ever is.

It's so...

You're so much older and I'm so much younger. You'd be 78 by the time I was 41. I have thought of that. It's more that it's wrong for me. I know that you're not likely to like me back; I don't even know if you're of the persuasion, I don't know at all about what you think of me, only it'll be less because I let you down today and I didn't write as well as what will be written and I'm not pretty or thin, but then you don't care about those, but you might when you're looking for someone...

But the way I feel bypasses all of this information. All of that sense. Why is that. We don't even think the same.

All I want to do is love someone, and it's hard for me for all these reasons. What happened to me as a child to make me interested in people so much older? Was it genetic? What then?

I don't know.

Too much ice cream

Is what I just ate- about 200 calories worth, so now 1555, depressing, a depressing state. I just will have to do better, far far better.

A let down.

Today I let down the Lady of the House. I let down my Mother, who thought she'd done better than teach me to be irresponsible and not ring back people offering me cleaning jobs. I let down the netball team.

I was having fun with friends. My brother teased me for what we were doing (making signs to hang on the canal by my house). I think he's an arse. It makes me sad.

I'm sadder that I let these people down.

Mum told me that someone she works with thinks I'm lovely and incandescent with energy and just a cool person.

That's nice.

Here's my eating today:

a kitkat-107
1/4 a jacket potato-100
a bowl of bran flakes and raisins-250

457

chicken rogan josh with a little bit of veg and a little naan and some rice-600

a kitkat-107
a hot chocolate-40
tsp ice cream-40

887

added together is 1344.

I can deal with that just about though I haven't done any exercise apart from a little tiny walk.

Salve Regina.

I want to give you the best of everything that I can offer because you're my Queen, because you do everything and feel it so much even if I think it's wrong, and because you thrust away any crown that comes your way, preferring to pull strings behind scenes. I want to give you things you would like; no jewels or coronets, my time, scrawlings with pens and pencils, and maybe a cake, or to clean for you. Nursery child offerings appreciated with effusive tones and with little point, a blackmailed gratitude because the gifts are useless, though what I want to show is my service and allegiance, not because I agree with what you think but because I agree with you. You looked happily tired tonight. Your cheeks got redder and redder, and you'd made an effort with purple polyester. You put a hand to my shoulder, when I was feeling shy and shyer, and somehow that made it alright. I need to perfect the art of silence around you, usually I can do it. I need to stop saying, "that is good" or making value statements about work I've done that demand verification or denial or talking too much, or doing a louder than it needs to be laugh, or flirting. I think that all these things must make me irritating. I don't want to be. I want to be like you and liked by you. I need your value statements because you're what I'm setting my stock by.

Paper Whims and what they mean.

I gave you a ten-pence broadsheet
Which had what you wanted inside
Though it didn't print the way I meant it
A marriage of your views and mine
Editor presiding, of course.
Not my title and half my style
Your words through me
Ardent and mild, I'm a convex lens
Reflecting you correct enough.
I could have said other stuff
But didn't. My offering lost out
To what's in store, someone else
Coming after can do it better.
Sorry. Grey page, black letter.

Things I wish I could make you think of me.

1. I'm lovely, beautiful, thin.

2. I am a person of integrity.

3. I'm clever.

4. I'm modest, or at the least confident without boasting.

5. I'm an effective person.

6. That I'm not an arse.

These seem self defeating. Modesty counterbalances the wanting her to think the rest of the things. I don't think she will think them. I am skewed to point one: not even beautiful, or lovely, but thin. If I was thin then the rest wouldn't matter, I'm sure. Why do I think that? I link thin with everything else. Thin is effective, not an arse, lovely, beautiful, clever, modest, integrity. I suppose being thin is making a statement without making one; it's saying, I'm barely there, but look, I am there, I'm thin. Look but don't look because you can barely see me. Effective because I am running so well off the food I eat. I consume just enough, not too much, I've got it exactly right, I can survive on whatever you give me, I can survive without even. I'm not an arse because there isn't enough of me here to be one.

Oh god.

I'm incredibly narcissistic and I drive myself mad.

Musing

You're no Helen Mirren.

I'm no Penelope Cruz.

We don't judge each other like that.

But nor am I a Mother Teresa

No earthly martyr. No pale saint

Though pale enough, no doubt.

So I do fall short to you.

And your short falling makes me adore you more.

It's hard.


Your life funiculates your face and I wouldn't rid you of a single year.

Anemochral tide swept me to you.

Solutions

Here is the problem:

I am thinking too much about the way others perceive me.

I am not thinking too much about others, but the way that it's about ME so what I need to do is think less about me and more about other people.

The solution is to get into other people more.

I should not try to pretend to be a martyr or a perfect person because noone is. I am not Sleeping Beauty.

I should look to others more than myself and worry whether they are happy not whether I am happy about what they think. There's a difference.

I don't want to be the narcissistic jealous person I am.

I'm not a brilliant person, and I badly want to be.

I wrote an article I was really proud of, and I've just found out someone else will do one that's a million times better. I hate that I feel jealous and not as proud of what I've done because it'll be blown out of the water by someone else now.

I'm resentful about being the eldest child.

I say stupid things that must mark me out as a loser.

A man tonight asked me for my email address and I gave it because I didn't know how not to. I'm going to have to see him again. He helps out at the House, so I can't tell the Lady of the House, because she... might think I'm silly, and would know something else I should have done? It was my fault for not handling it right. I don't want to tell Mum because she'll freak out about it and worry too much. I'll probably tell a friend.

I wish I could be quietly passionate, like the Lady of the House, I wish I had the way of saying just what I think and not anything else, I wish... but wishing doesn't make the world go round. I wish I was successful. I wish.

I've gone over the count today.

4 biscuits, 2 marylands 2 cookies- 280

an apple-40

a cappucino-100

420

1/2 a bacon sandwich and a smoothie-300

some rice-100

400

two slices of bread-250

sugar puffs-114

a mars ice cream-143

400

Oh. Not as bad as I thought, if quantities are right, and I did a bike ride and an audition.

I really want a callback for the audition but I don't think I'll get one. They didn't look at me that way.

The Lady of the House (I think this is what I'll call her)- I made a promise to her today, and I can't keep it, and I feel bad that I'll have to ring her tomorrow and tell her. I feel sad about it.

Ugh.

Here are the things I'm doing next week:

Monday- HAND IN JOB APPLICATION and netball
Tuesday- day out on the waterart front. Yoga?
Wednesday-PASdance
Thursday-Streetdance?
Friday
Saturday-party housewarming. Help at shop?

I should also:

check on the jobs I've applied for and go to the bar in town
Write letters back to people that have written to me
apply for more things

Sunday-

Happy day.

It's amazing how happy simple things make me, well, how happy simple things make most people only they don't do them. I went to the House today and met some Hari Krishnas and spent time in the sun and time fixing bikes and it's been fine, it's good.

Here's what I've eaten:
lentil soup and a slice of bread and butter and a 1/4 of an orange-300
roast dinner- potatoes chicken broccoli some swede and a yorkshire pudding-600
apple crumble-300
hot chocolate-40
ice cream (2tsps)-50

I have done lots of exercise and been moving about so I feel kind of OK about it, though I don't feel light and airy like I have over the past few days which I don't like.

I've just come back to this after a bit and now I feel better. I felt like I wanted to eat forever but now not so much, so that's OK.

Tomorrow I am auditioning for another thing and it'll be fun, if nervewracking. I'm going to enjoy it, and then I'm going to the House. They wanted me to act but I didn't want to. I might have if they'd let me pick but I hate not having control.

It strikes me that I feel better and freer there maybe because they don't treat me...

My Dad got angry tonight because me and my brother were niggling at each other- he teases me because I haven't got a job and I teased him for the first time back, and Dad shouted at both of us. He never shouts when it's just my brother teasing me. As soon as I start to stand up for myself it's a problem, but if he's the problem then it's all fine. My brother is turning into an arse.

Anyway, it feels a bit fairer there. I don't have say in some things. But then I have got a say as far as I think I should be allowed one. Here I've got no say in what happens.

1200 today, brilliant.

I also went to a dance class and trotted round town a bit. I have a lump in my throat, I feel it now, and when I swallow and I don't love anyone anymore with that passion that meant I had to cling something to me. I wonder if it's cancer. It's easy to make me think I've got cancer. Touch wood it's not, but it never is- I worry about swollen anything and everything. Not loving is probably due to a full life and conclusion or something as such.

The throat lump, is due to not launching myself on the world of course.

Anemochore- the dispersal of seeds by wind.
ascidium- shaped like a flask, used for plants in biology
locular- containing chambers or hollows.
funiculate-forming a narrow ridge
Glissade
perdure-to last permanently

Oh I wish I knew something beautiful to fit those words to. Ascidium body, anemochore, the process bringing me to you, Locular, my love, I funiculate my skin with tense fingers, glissade over days in perduring amour.

I can't. It's not right. I need to be around someone I adore to make the words come out right and fire off the page like I want them to.

Anemochore.

It sounds so melancholy.

He lets a panel of the dream slide out before him- Annie Proulx.

Thats a beautiful bit of brokeback mountain. The image of a dream unravelling out and the way she writes about the caravan, the rattling, and his pissing in the sink, is all earthy. If it was sounds there would be definite filmic clunks and satisfying scrapes and pops to go with it. I adore sounds on film, they're so much better than the half-grasped ones in real life.

I just spoke to a friend whose Mum is dead, and she's a bit off the rails. I don't want to pity her, but sometimes I do want to put my arms round her and tell her not to be lonely- I think she is at the moment, looking for something she can't find. I can't imagine being without my Mum.

Tonight I came back
And Dinner was laid out
The worktops were bare
But I can't do anything useful
If I did it round her I would be aware
Of her watching. Not a criticism, but maybe a knowing
that I was doing it for her benefit. Or she would direct me
Like her puppet, or want me to do it another way, or something else.
So she does it on her own instead.
There's clattering and a series of grunted sighs that announce the travail
A world war in dishcloths and detreitus that
She won't win, or will.
The Hoover's an admonition, cupboard doors repent and scold
Louder than it feels, because these objects
Are her domain and subconscious attention.
Time's wasted and I am wanting in that.
Helping is not enough to rally troops
Nor to staunch the marching flow
Of wash over cup over hoover.
I would like to clear up my life's mess
when it is done for me
I vegitate inanimate useless.

This is how I feel about my Mum and her doing housework.

Communist daughter standing on the seaweed water.

I wish I could write proper poetry. I am inspired but it just can't get out lucid. I can write silly flip little things but I want to write something worthwhile.

Anemochore- the dispersal of seeds by wind.
ascidium- shaped like a flask, used for plants in biology
locular- containing chambers or hollows.
funiculate-forming a narrow ridge
Glissade
perdure-to last permanently

Criticism and calories again.

Eating today
a macadamia nut and a cranberry-20
Tea (gave me hiccups so I only drank a little bit)
A pastrami mozarella rocket and onion relish sandwich, but I pulled off one of the slices of bread and also most of the pastrami. From the Camden food Company.-400
An apple-40
A biscuit-60
tea-10
Pasta with vegetables and bolognaise. I had a plate of this, half filled with vegetables, and I felt ill after, which is good because it means my stomach's shrinking but bad because I probably stretched it again.-500
ice cream-100

so all in all probably about 1200, and I feel very full, so I'm happy. I shouldn't be. I should be happy to eat about 1500, that's OK. But I can't, I just can't be happy with that. It will come back and bite me on my slowed metabolic rate arse, I know it, I'm so stupid.

I got offered an internship at a prestigious fashion company. I didn't think they'd want me but they do. Now I just have to suss out if I want it badly enough to say goodbye to cash I could earn in 2 months, which could mean goodbye to theatre school and goodbye to other things.

She of the Bovine is having problems with her teenage alcoholic mother. She thinks she's a robot but I think she's human, more so than her mum who is acting in the worst way. I can't imagine having a parent like that. Mine are so reasonable. She of the bovine is so bright, clever and sorted- I don't trust her and she's got her issues, but she is brilliant in general. And I trust her enough to let her know most things, I just don't trust that what she says is always true about how she feels, but then again if I had a mother like hers I'd be closing feelings in on all sides too. I think her and Bombazine had a thing going; they might still, for all I know. I want to whisk her away from everything, but I can't solve everyone's problems, and I worry that she picks fights with people she lives with because it's the only way she knows, and we never fight, I like our friendship the way it is. I don't know. I'm worried she could be a sociopath but I still think she's cool. I kind of wish I was a sociopath. There isn't much about her that I wouldn't want to be. She's innately good at things, talented and pretty. I always want to be parts of someone else. She says she comfort eats, but I think we're about the same size. I can't settle on myself. I can't want to be me when other people have so many other things that they are that I want to be.

And then there's Houselady. She's fine as far as I know. I wish I knew what she properly thought of me. She's been an interesting exercise for me in criticism taking- I know that we can fall out over opinions but still laugh together, so I think it's OK. She won't hate me for disagreeing or ram the point, as far as I know. It's too early to judge properly. I can be very good at taking criticism, or very bad. It depends.

Siblings

My younger brother and sister and me spent much of tonight giving each other piggy back rides, which was fun. They both sit heavily (I suppose that it would seem that way because of my not eating much today) but my eleven-year old sister can carry me. I couldn't believe it. She said I was a lot lighter than my 15 year old brother, who must weigh about 12 or 13 st. I reason that my sister and I are about 1-2st apart in weight, and I can't believe she can carry me and my brother- she's ridiculously strong.

Hmmm. I do want to be thinner, but I don't want to be thinner this way. It's interesting.

Eating, sport and everything else.

Here is what happened today:

I saw an old friend and had a lovely time over coffee, though I feel I might have spoken too much and she too little, but we are doing it again so she can't hate me.

The House lady emailed me, I don't think she likes the poster, but I know that she does still like me.

I went to play netball for the first time in seven years, and it was OK. The last time I played was at school, and I wasn't even good enough for the worst team. I was useless at the rules of it but they said that they could use my height and lengthy arm span, and they want me to sign up properly, so I can't be that bad. It was good to have time when people were telling me I was wrong but I didn't take it personally because it felt fair, and they weren't being nasty. I liked the criticism bit because it's good practice for getting things wrong, and it's a good skill to learn, how to take going wrong well. Also, I need to get more exercise and it was truly exhausting- but I managed to keep going to the end. I didn't feel like it was exercise though, just like it was fun.

I rode my bike into town.

I have ate:

An ice cream-244
An apple-40
A cup of coffee-100
A smoothie-150
A cup of tea.-30

So this is a tally of... 560. This is akin to what I used to eat when I was silly, but it's been unintentional- I genuinely haven't been hungry, and I have been intending to eat. I can feel stomach rumblings now but I also feel a bit sick and I just don't fancy eating. I told my Mum and she said just listen to your body, but I do worry. I'm not worried about the amount I've consumed- I know it's small but it's not catastrophic, I'm worried about how I feel about it. I'm worried that tomorrow I'll either eat about 2000 or I won't feel like eating again, and then I'll be on the thin cycle, but if I go strange again I'll be fat later on in life, it doesn't pay to get like this.

I should just chill out. I wasn't deliberately starving myself, it just so happens that I didn't want food, and tomorrow is another day. I'm just worried because I feel proud of my inadvertent calorie deficit and that I'm enjoying the emptiness a bit too much. I like feeling a bit lightheaded and relieved- I feel far better than when I'm just eating and eating for no reason and I feel like I'm wading through myself. But I also don't want to get back onto that cycle. I just want to live normally.

Contemplations on digestations

I'm getting everything food-wise under control and in no time at all I'll be back to how I should be, which is svelte.

I am fixated. I can't deny that I like having a large build because when I am thin, I do look shocking. Red hair and tall and wide and pale, and bony. A friend said that when I move I remind her of Jack Skellington, from a Nightmare Before Christmas. I'm OK with that. People say they can feel my bones now, though they don't expect to. I've always got a clavicle, always ribs in back and front. I'm not thin yet- I've got a stomach overhang and chunky thighs, but they'll go and then I'll be fine again.

It's strange that I prefer to romanticise the comfortable of build. Even if I do put on weight I don't look comfortable- I look muscular, like a Russian Shotputter gone to seed. I don't tend towards rotund, more to cube.

Looking

I would like to tell you that:

your stomach bore two children
And 'I have the weak and feeble body of a woman, but the heart and stomach of A King' is applicable. It says I am soft and vulnerable and strong enough to take on the world as well. It's complex and beautiful.

I would hope someone has already told you this, but I suppose not.

Or if they had that you'd listen and feel better. I wonder if you were a beauty at my age. I wonder if you hate or like the way you look. I like your looks.

Cycles.

I think I might actually have managed to stay under 1200 today. I made a list, knew I'd missed something- it was a smoothie, which was about 100, so it's OK.

I am listening to Like a Rose by Lucinda Williams, it makes me want to be near her. It's OK to feel good that's the way it should be.

She writes bad heartfelt poetry, but I like it nontheless. I like her. I drew posters today, one on the computer and two off it. It was only meant to be one but I got enthusiastic fast, and that meant more ideas than I could get down. Nothing looks as good as I imagined but I suppose that's OK. It's not really though.

It still looks ok but just not brilliant, I want the stuff to be brilliant. I suppose I want her to say I'm brilliant but she might not even see the stuff I've drawn.

Difficult.

Today I ate:

A biscuit-60
Houmous and pasta-200
chocolate-130
A piece of fish and about 10 chips-300
Butterbean and lentil with chips-400
A piece of bread-100

Plus alcohol and some smoothie. Tomorrow I will eat more fruit and vegetables. I will catch scurvy. No teeth and fat.
No vegetables, no wonder I'm gaining weight.

A few nights ago she said to me, when I came on my bike and got wet, that I could borrow trousers and then that maybe they were too small for me. She didn't mean it like that. But I thought, oh god, she is thinking of my fat thighs, my fat arse trying to squeeze into these trousers. She is thinking I am hideously obese, that when she was my age they would have fallen off her. She is thinking that I am lacksidaisical and I don't care about others because I am always eating. She is comparing me to the refugees she helps and I am an example of western gluttony gone awry.

She probably was not thinking any of these things. And the trousers did fit, and she didn't mean it in that way. She didn't mean, you are too large. She meant the trousers might be too small. But I couldn't help thinking all of those things, and I was so relieved when they did fit, and I didn't eat what she offered me for tea.

A rhapsody

I know you're not pretty and yet you're beautiful to me. Lovely just lovely just.
I felt bad when a friend asked, "Is she good looking" and I had to reply, "no". To me you are beautiful, but I know that to her you wouldn't be you see. I can't stand the inferences, that's what it is, I can't stand someone else thinking you're somehow substandard when you're brilliant in every dimension. I want to protect your image. But you are not beautiful, not like a film star, and that shouldn't matter. It shouldn't count as a mark against you. It doesn't to me, but then, I think you are anyway.

But it might to the rest of the world.

Today

Was better. I went out, was angry because agencies need so much faff (you can't just give them a CV, no, they want you to go in with one, come back later, go back again and again... twats). But then I handed a CV into a bar where there might be work, which made me a bit happier, and it was a good bar, and had dinner in Ikea, which always makes me happy, and went to her house, the woman that thought I was silly. I will call it The House. She gave me some tea and I met a man that had been in prison. She was helping him, she's good to people, so steadfast and reassuring in a non-patronising way. She knows such a lot about how to help people in a way that doesn't let them take the mickey, so that she can help everyone. She knows so much about important things that really help people, like how to get off bail, and she's doing something about it that matters. She's such a useful person, in the best way.

I told her about my job worries and she just laughed, which put it all in perspective for me. I like her a lot, I want to be her friend. If I'm honest more, even though there's a massive age gap. I told her about wearing a sari and the spiritualist church and she's just lovely. Just listens really. I felt like I talked too long really, I should have shut up, I am becoming my grandmother.

I got home and it was all about jobs again- my brother was teasing me, my parents wanted to discuss nothing more than careers, and it's so very tense, I just don't want to talk to them about it, I want to deal with it alone. I'm getting angry with silly things and it's not right and I don't want to be that kind of person.

But I do like her. Her name's lovely, but I don't want to write it here. She's beautiful when she laughs. I thought she was missing two teeth, but she's just got small teeth, small and very straight. I feel like I want to cling onto her and say how much I like her and how much she's helping me, but that would be so silly.

I am silly.

It's better feeling silly than angry though.

I want to shout and scream and cry to rupture the feeling in my throat that there's something I just can't swallow, which is that life didn't turn out how I planned it to. I didn't turn out how I wanted to, or how I want to be now. I want to be quick and sharp and the girl noone messes with, and instead I am just a mess, distressed. I want my space back, I want it so badly. I want to kick something and flagrate all the rules and say I don't care, I just don't care.

I want to be with someone that wants to hold me tight and will tell me I'm not silly, I'm just human. Or I'm both, maybe.

I want to be someone except me.

A girl I know got into RADA. I feel sick to the core. I feel desperate.

So angry.

With my Mum. I feel bad for being angry, because she's a good person, she tries to do her best, and she's cool and funny and brilliant all round. But today she was driving me mad.

Firstly, we were meant to leave the house at twelve, and we didn't get out till half one, because she was cleaning the house for my brother and sister when they got back from school. She knew I had to be back for a certain time, but still pushed the amount of time we had out at our day out, which was only two hours because she'd spent so long getting out. She always says to me, "we have to be out by twelve!" and then I'll be sitting there for hours waiting for her to get ready. I feel like it's a control thing, like she has me ready but isn't herself, because she's more important. That isn't true. She doesn't think like that, it's just me being vindictive, I am vindictive. I can't forgive. I was furious with her for ages in the car, and later, and I just feel like a horrible person because I can't seem to forgive and forget like everyone else, stupid petty things like this preoccupy me and why can't I remember the good things instead, and focus on them?

Written down this looks incredibly petty, but I hate it when she puts me off for housework, for something the others could do when they came back. I still feel angry and hateful even though I know I shouldn't. Why can't I just be normal? My brother would forgive. I have given up on housework. I feel like it's never enough to do it, and noone else ever helps, so if they don't I won't make myself a martyr to the cause like she does.

I share a room with my sister and the only time I really get alone is this time late at night. I need it to be able to think freely. She hung around till four, and it's driven me mad, rustling receipts and banging about when I was trying to watch a film. I asked her if I could just have a bit of time on my own, and she just went back at me- we all would, it's your fault, I want time alone too. She's always saying how she wishes we could have a bigger house so I didn't have to share a bedroom, but she couldn't care less, evidently, because she doesn't respect my need for a little bit of personal space at the end of the day.

I hate being treated like I don't matter or like I'm not worthy of anyone listening to me, and that's how I feel at the moment. Two of my friends haven't been in touch for ages. My Mum doesn't give a damn about what I need, and prefers to think about what she thinks I need rather than what I'm telling her I need, and yet I still need her approval. I'm such a child. And I feel bad now, writing this because she's a good mum, in every other way, she just wants me to be happy, and I'm stupid and selfish for being such a cock.

I just want to be better. I want my own space. I want to be able to do what I want without worrying about money, or anyone nagging me, or feeling like I'm getting too old too fast for it all.

Thinking.

I feel physically sick at the possibility of not going to theatre school or not starting in the world soon soon soon. I can barely wait till next year to try, I can't can't can't wait till the year after that. I'd be twenty four, in my first year, that thought makes me incredibly depressed. I want to be there NOW and not later, and not when I'm too old, and not when I'm past it and not when doors have closed and by that time everyone else is successful and launched upon the world and I'm back and behind and still learning like some retarded child.

I hate the thought of it. I hate being behind. I hate.

Antonyms

A word for you newest reluctant darling
A new fresh word to open out
Flower into a sentence and then drift off on the air
I have used old ones in the past cardboard cutouts
Because they fit you right
But instead I will say
Blithe
Exquisite
they don't go together
When I look at you
I see new grown vulnerability
And happiness.
That's why, then,
I've used antonyms.

How you are

Glass girl shattered through in brown skin and beauty
Though you don't believe me it's true
And in life you're real, warm so that my cold blood
Is swept from my veins in your hand
Replaced with yours. Haze of cares float by
You're there
Fragile and whole.

I am angry because

Mum pities me.

I cut off my nose to spite my face.

I won't go out now because she wouldn't want me to and would panic. I want to go out. Why does Mum matter so much. Why do I care about people and yet they think I don't care when my brother cares about noone and everyone cares about him, he's popular and liked and noone loves him more or less than me. Doing what is right gets me exactly the same treatment as he does, or worse.

My brother never gets asked to do any jobs. Why can't I just be like him and get away with everything. He will most likely get into a better university than I have done with worse results, he will most probably get a better job, and I just stay obeying everyone and caring what they think of me and I hate myself for it and people for not letting me get away with it and just the way I can't and he can. And I hate being me.

Blondie.

It's a simple drawing of you little and round. I think you'd make a perfect children's character, strong brave and funny in your pinks and blues and blonde. You always look as if you are having the time of your life. Time of your life sounds like you have it once and never again. You're repeating it for every page. There's one though, of you in front of mud by tents. Three of you but it's you I look at as always. You have every right to look unhappy because of the mud; your boots are covered and your pink skirt, though these aren't things that make you unhappy. You said to me that you feel unhappy because you are not confident about yourself and I said the same and you didn't believe me. I believed you. When you said it your voice didn't change from how you normally are, but in the photo you look like you might have felt then.

Maybe you will attribute it to the mud, though usually you don't care about dirt. You look straight at the camera. Your curls have melted to frizz and your hands are sunk into sleeves. There's a slight epaulment on your stooped shoulders, and if I was there I would be the one taking the back of your hand, turning you to me and saying you are lovely lovely lovely, I want you, you are brilliant in the mud in your pink.

Poems

No choice but to.

Why this new leaking from the eyes
I had forgotten
That eyes can be red and sore.

Starts at the throat with a lump
and then it bursts
And my voice torrential beats a downpour
Steady deluged track
And I feel horrified as everything I've worked to maintain floats away on broken me
Babbling away
Because there's nothing to cling to anymore.

The roof of my mouth heartbeats
Waiting for the next flood
In tissue-wiped calm
Knowing there's worse out there
Doesn't form a shelter in here.

Here's what I think to you though I bet you never think to me.

And wouldn't if you were here now, when I'm whining over petty things and being so stupid. I need someone to tell me I'm not dismal in every respect. Not that people are telling me that- it seems to be an inevitable conclusion I've reached about my life. I don't care anymore, it's just all bringing me down, Mum is, treating me with cotton wool, I just want everything to be better, people are, my brother, doing so incredibly well, he'll eclipse me in no time and I'm just a grey lump.

Just a grey lump seeping useless tears. Useless useless useless to everyone and everything and who on earth would care?

I saw some pictures of you. I'll maybe next see you in October. I think you're brilliant. In an ideal world, you would look at me and say nothing and just hug me and say I think you're lovely whatever. Which is what Mum says, but I don't want her hugs, and if she thinks I'm lovely whatever then why does she want me to DO and not wait for something better? She wants me to be happy. I think deep down she wants some sort of return or something to say to her friends. That isn't fair and it's not true, she wants me to be happy. Why do I care so much what she wants? Maybe when I think of you I am just thinking of the things I want people to say to me. I want someone to love me no matter what I am and noone does. I want someone to want me forever, or to think they do, and to not care if I'm fat or thin or wearing makeup or anything, and be pleased to introduce me to their friends anyway. I want someone to think I'm cool and clever in a different way. I want someone that thinks my body is lovely. Ideally they'd think it was thin but that's becoming a dwindling possibility.

I think of you all those ways. Blonde hair and shouting mouth and crooked teeth, and the way you laughed and showed Bee your armpit that time, and how you're so kind. And you say something all the time about how I look cool even when I think I look so far from it. Its like you know what I want, but I know that you're just generally kind and this is all fantasy on my part. Warm to everyone.

Does your mother know?

All mine's trying to do is be kind and make me happy. So why is it that every time she talks to me about my career I burst into tears and just end up shouting?

Then I say sorry because she only wants to help, she only wants to be good, and it's good advice she's giving, but it makes me despondent. And why? Because people are in far worse situations than I am and it's so incredibly self indulgent of me to do that.

Here is what I feel:

Frustrated that she's suggesting these things to me when she's no career magnate.
Frustrated that she's possibly right.
That I have failed because someone else has intervened
She wants me to do things that I think will come up with dead ends- agencies and careers advisors. They might be a good idea, but I feel like it's patronising- agencies won't get me a job as a runner or something that goes somewhere interesting. Agencies are for people who are failing to get jobs elsewhere.
And that's me.
And that makes me so angry. I've tried for years and this is my reward.
The way she thinks I should be more realistic. She's told me to aim high all my life and now she wants me to crawl along the floor with everyone else instead of aiming higher. Fuck real. Who wants to live in dreary drudge? I AM realistic, I want what I want and I don't want some shit.
I feel like a loser and when she talks to me and makes me think I'm depressed and failing it compounds that feeling and makes me want to just never leave, and now I feel weak and useless because I cried and because I talked about it and it's making me cry again now, and I just hate her for doing it to me, and I hate myself for feeling like that, it's such a horrible petty way to feel, and I read the above and I can see I look like a grandiose bitch. Well maybe I am. Maybe grandiose is the way to go.

She thinks that because I don't talk about it I'm not doing it. I am doing it, I'm doing it to death but I don't want to talk about failing and the past, I want to move on and up and away from this shitty fucking cunt crap shit time. I want more from life and you don't get more by dwelling on less.

I want people around me that I like

I want to stop feeling angry. I want two dogs two cats a big kitchen and a welcome mat. Not true.

A girl like me
Is ten a penny
A girl like me
Won't give up what she wants
In the face of common sense
And a girl like me
Probably should just settle to data entry.
But a girl like me
Isn't worth much more than a £5.82 salary.

Oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh oh.

Why on earth is life so depressing?

A pep talk doesn't work on me

It just serves to bring me down because it points up the fact that I was in need of a pep talk, and so it's the other person doing the work to bring me up instead of myself. It's them that gets the credit, not me.

Drifting

Mum had a talk to me today about how I am drifting, not getting a job, that is. Well, it's disheartening. What's more disheartening is that someone's noticed you're failing at life miserably. Waking up late going to bed late is one of Mum's main grievances. Oh she must have had so much planned for me and now I feel like I've let them all down and why on earth bother, I'll never get anywhere anyway. She said I should not go to drama school because they can't support me financially- well, I want to support myself financially, I didn't care about them and this is exactly why I didn't tell them about auditioning, I didn't want them to worry and now they're being utterly stupid and refusing aid they can't give and worrying about what I want and don't want. I couldn't care less whether they help or not I'll do it anyway.

She wants me to go to a careers advisor, sign up to some agencies and go on the dole. I don't want any of that crap. This is my reaction because she suggests it. She might be right, but I can't stand another shitty careers advisor going on about this and that. I know what I want to do. Nowhere wants me to do it is all.

Noone cares about me in a professional sense, and why should they, there's noone making them. Girls like me are owed nothing and are ten a penny. I'm not particularly anything enough to make anyone give me a job. I've got to stop being so goddamn self pitiful and get up off my fat arse and do something instead of sitting about. I need to go out and put myself out for yet more rejection. Brilliant.

I have only been successful in getting a list of people who want me to aupair. Mum was all up for this. Now she says she doesn't want me to do it, it's not what I want to do, blah blah blah. One minute I'm not realistic enough, then when I think of a way that I can earn money at the same time as seeing the world I'm not aiming high enough, I'm still not realistic, I'm holding out for drama school which is a silly dream.

Screw what everyone else wants.

It's only that I want the same thing. I don't want a lot. I want to be left alone. I want a job where someone wants me, that I don't hate going to every morning.

After a degree and four work experience placements, I'd have thought that wouldn't be out of my reach.

Apparently,I am simply shit.

It's worse because my University friends haven't been in contact for a bit.

I could make the effort.

I did. They don't care.

I feel like noone does.

Why on earth bother. I want to stick my head under a duvet and never come out until the world's better.

I'm not that crap so I won't.

I try hard to be nice and to do the right thing. I've shared a room with my sister for years and made my parents feel OK about it, I've not overspent my university allowance, I try to be a good friend and it's just not working out. Whine whine whine. It's probably because I'm such a complete and utter pussy. This is piteous and I do deserve what's happened to me- I need to fight back and stop being such a whingy cunt.

Tragic discrepancy.

I read a piece of writing from a friend the other day. The friend is self centred and self conscious. She'd been set the piece to do in a creative writing class. She had to write from the perspective of someone she'd had a disagreement with, and chose an ex-housemate that's equally as self-centred and more attention seeking. However, in her story, she'd made the girl a psychotic freak- the housemate- and she might be, for all I know, though she'd never exhibited it to the extent in the story. That wasn't the strangest thing. The strangest thing was that she'd made herself into a popular member of the company that everyone loved- and she isn't. I like the girl that wrote it. She can be kind, if patronising, and she's good fun a lot of the time. But she's also officious (though she gets things done), bossy, panick-y, emotionally overwrought... she's a talented scriptwriter, but not so much a creative writer. She's manipulative at times. People are kind to her face but mean behind her back... and it just makes me realise that how people see each other and how they actually are entail massive discrepancies.

I wonder how far I differ from my actual opinion, or if I write like that. I once remarked to a friend that the girl in question danced like a ho and dressed like one because she didn't want to be different, though she's cool on her own terms with noone around and doesn't need to do any of the whore dancing with all the regalia. She's a great scriptwriter, a good director, a great comic when she wants to be... but I can see that she sees herself as a pageant queen, and that she ain't. It's a shame. I should acknowledge that people are more than one thing, I suppose, but it just seems like she's landed so far from what she aims for, and that is the tragic discrepancy.

Not just a river in Egypt.

If anything is bad, and I think it's my fault, I far prefer to dig my head under the ground and not think about it than deal with it, which of course makes it a bigger problem to do.